"He will replace Ajay Chhibber of India, who will return to his government," Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Haoliang Xu will also be appointed as assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The new assistant secretary general "has many years of distinguished service within UNDP holding various leadership positions, most recently as deputy regional director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States in New York since 2010," the spokesperson said in a statement.

Haoliang Xu has also served as the UN resident coordinator and UNDP resident representative in Kazakhstan.

Before joining the world body, he was a computer-aided design engineer with Louis Berger International Inc. in the US state of New Jersey and an assistant lecturer at Tongji University in Shanghai, China.

He graduated from Tongji University with a degree in Bridge Engineering and earned a Master's degree in International Policy Analysis and Management from Colombia University in New York.

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